New data on quarantine pests and pests of the EPPO Alert List

By browsing through the CABI Abstracts, the EPPO Secretariat has extracted the following new data concerning quarantine pests and pests included on the EPPO Alert List. The situation of the pest concerned is indicated in bold, using the terms of ISPM no. 8.

New records

Ceratitis quinaria (Diptera: Tephritidae – EPPO A1 list) has recently been identified for the first time from Mali on mango crops (Vayssières et al., 2004).

Liriomyza huidobrensis and L. sativae (Diptera: Agromyzidae – EPPO A2 list) are reported as important pests of vegetable crops in Indonesia (Prijono et al., 2004). The EPPO Secretariat had previously no data on the occurrence of L. sativae in Indonesia.

In Croatia, Mycosphaerella pini (EU Annexes) is reported to occur in Pinus nigra plantations, but causing little damage (Diminić, 2001). This is in accordance with earlier reports made in former Yugoslavia.

During studies on Capsicum annuum done in Venezuela, Tomato ringspot nepovirus and Tobacco ringspot nepovirus (both on the EPPO A2 list) were detected for the first time (Rodríguez et al., 2004).

In South Africa, Globodera rostochiensis (EPPO A2 list) was first reported in 1971 and was subsequently eradicated. In 1999, it was found again in Western Cape. Surveys showed that G. rostochiensis only occurred in the Sandveld and Ceres areas of the Western Cape. Phytosanitary measures are being applied to prevent any further spread. During these surveys, G. pallida was not found (Knoetze et al., 2004).

In Mexico, Rhynchophorus palmarum (Coleoptera: Curculionidae – Alert List) was found for the first time in Baja California Sur on Washingtonia robusta in November 2000 and January 2001 (García-Hernández et al., 2003).

In Italy, Scaphoideus titanus (Homoptera: Cicadellidae – vector of grapevine flavescence dorée phytoplasma) was thought to be confined to the Po valley, but in recent years it has been found in other regions of Italy, notably in the southern provinces of Basilicata, Apulia and Calabria. It has also been found in Campania (Viggiani, 2004).

Natural infection of Apple mosaic ilarvirus (EPPO A2 list) was observed for the first time in a Fragaria vesca plant maintained in a germplasm collection in Oregon (US). An RT-PCR test was developed and will allow detection of this virus in field samples to determine its distribution and importance in strawberry production (Tzanetakis & Martin, 2005)

Natural infections of Tomato black ring nepovirus (EU Annexes) on Sambucus nigra were observed for the first time in 2002 in Poland (Pospieszny et al., 2004).

European Union funding:
For a three-year period (2018-12-11 to 2021-12-10), EPPO has been awarded an EU grant for the further development of the EPPO code system (agreement nb: SANTE/2018/G5/EPPO/SI2.793173). The EU Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information from this project subsequently included in the EPPO Global Database.